BDD BEHAVIOURS: TOUCHING
Rosa frequently touched her hair to make sure it was puffed up. If it didn’t feel right, she rushed to the mirror to fix it. Another woman constantly touched her face to “cool it off so it didn’t look so red. Zach frequently touched his lips, which he thought were too small, tense, and “never in the right position,” trying to make them look more relaxed and natural. He also compulsively licked them hundreds—perhaps even thousands—of times a day. “I have to lick them to check them, and so they’re not so dry and to make them look better. I try to resist, but I get more nervous and upset, and I can’t talk to people unless I lick them. But when I do it I usually feel worse, because it looks so strange, and other people must think I’m really weird.”Frequently touching the disliked body part is another form of body checking, which about half of people with BDD do. Touching may also take the form of manipulating the body part to make it look better. A nose may be pushed up to look shorter or sideways to seem less crooked. Judy frequently pressed on her eye to make it more symmetrical with her other eye. She put so much pressure on it that she gave herself a black eye.Touching, like mirror checking and many other BDD behaviors, can actually fuel the obsession and is best avoided. One woman said, “Touching my face confirms that the defect is there and I feel worse, so I try not to do it.” Sometimes it’s a trigger for skin picking. Touching often increases emotional distress and may lead to more time-consuming and futile attempts to remove or improve the flaw.*115\204\8*
